Icarus Down

by James Bow

  My communications uniform had been piled into a makeshift pillow. Thinking of the girl coming back and seeing me in nothing but a blanket of leaves brought me to my feet, albeit slowly, wincing as the rocks bit into the soles of my feet. I picked through my clothes. My shirt was cut in half, but my tunic was fine. With a struggle, I dressed myself.

  As I was doing up my tunic, something poked me in the side. I fumbled through the pocket and brought it out, then let out a sound like I’d been punched in the stomach.

  Isaac’s pocketknife.

  Rachel had given it to me to help me mourn Isaac’s death, and to move past her own grief. Now she too was dead.

  See? Rachel’s voice echoed in my head. Life goes on.

  I gulped. The grief that had been bottled up inside me, corked by shock and pain, bubbled out. Rachel. Life hadn’t gone on for her. It wasn’t fair.

  Fair won’t keep your flight level, cadet, Isaac had said.

  Isaac. I sat down on the stone, hard. I covered my face and cried for a good long time.

  Finally, when I had no more tears, I pulled my head from my hands and looked up at the cave ceiling. Rachel’s voice echoed back at me again.

  What are you going to do about that? Give up?

  I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. What was I going to do?

  I had wanted to die, but the Fates had kept me going. Here and now, sitting on a stone in a dark, cool cave, I didn’t have the stomach to think of new ways to kill myself.

  I frowned at that thought, but it was true. Something in me wasn’t ready to die — something that hadn’t been there when I had to choose between burning and falling. And wondering why, I realized that dying meant letting Nathaniel Tal win.

  I looked at Isaac’s knife, resting in the palm of my hand.

  Nathaniel had destroyed my city. He’d killed thousands of people. He’d left Rachel and me to die. He’d killed Aaron. Maybe Isaac. Maybe even Mom. He’d killed them all, and unless I did something, he was going to get away with it.

  My hand closed around my brother’s knife. No.

  No, he was not going to get away with it. Not while I still had life. I had the truth, and I would bring him down.

  I brought Isaac’s pocketknife to my lips. “I swear,” I whispered to it. “In the Creator’s name, I swear. For Isaac. For Rachel. For Mom.” I lowered my hands. “For everybody.”

  * * *

  But how?

  I couldn’t go to the ruins of Iapyx. I’d be shot on sight. Perhaps I could go to one of the other cities, where the guards were less trigger-happy. If Nathaniel had any say, I’d have little time to tell people what I knew before I was conveniently shot trying to escape. But Nathaniel couldn’t be in all the cities at once. He and Matthew seemed to have fled to Daedalon, so I would walk to Octavia.

  Walk. To Octavia. Through the fog forest. An hour’s flight by ornithopter translated to … what? A week’s journey by foot? A month? It was madness. Even if I was healthy, I couldn’t make it.

  I did have an ally — or, at least, I thought she was an ally. She’d fed me, and nursed me back to health. She knew the forest in ways that would take me years to learn. I wouldn’t have survived without her.

  But she spoke in the language of the ticktock monsters — even the fact that the ticktock monsters had a language was a revelation.

  Could I ask her to take me to Octavia?

  Maybe I could start small, by trying to be useful.

  And so I learned that though I didn’t understand her language, I could get a good sense of her expressions.

  Like the time I tried turning over the meat while her back was turned (I thought it was in danger of burning), burnt my fingers and lost the meat to the flames. She turned at my shout, stared blankly at the empty stone, and then her eyes narrowed and she glared at me.

  Or the time she caught me fiddling with one of her bags, fortunately stopping me before I scratched myself on her poison thorns. Her sigh and the shake of her head were easy to translate.

  The next day I tried to follow her as she left the cave. She turned sharply and planted her fist on my chest.

  I pushed forward. She pushed me back, harder, and said something. The meaning was clear enough.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I mean, I’m getting better. I can’t stay in this cave anymore; I’ll go nuts. I want to see my city—”

  But the girl poked me with that two-finger point of hers, pointed at the fire, and then at the wood. She stalked off into the wilderness.

  I slunk back to the cave. So the only job she thought I was capable of was fire-stoker. I added a stick to the fire. The worst thing was, she was right. I still couldn’t walk far without a break. In the forest, I’d be a drag on her. Of course this was the only sensible place to be. It didn’t make me feel any less useless, however.

  I glanced at the latest carcass keeping cool in the stream. There was not a lot of meat left, and what remained had been dead a while. We could use a fresh kill.

  And as I thought about that, a resolve grew in me. I would show her I wasn’t completely helpless. I’d watched her as she moved through the forest toward this cave. I’d already learned some of the plants to avoid. More than that, I already knew of a plant I could use to hunt.

  I stepped over the protective fence and followed the gurgling stream until it emptied into a pond. A quick but careful search revealed one of the plants with the long, tough stems. I gripped one and pulled. It was harder than it looked, but finally the shoot came free.

  I tested the thing in my hands. It was as long as I was tall, but light. And though it was hollow, it wouldn’t bend. The end, however, was smooth and round. This wouldn’t do.

  Back in the cave, I looked for a stone to carve the end of the stalk into a point. My eyes fell on the bags the girl had left behind. Picking through them, carefully avoiding the one with the thorns, I found one that housed the bone knife she’d used to cut up the lizard. Actually, six knives, all of bone so white they almost glowed in the dark, their blades at least fifteen centimetres long, curved and sharp.

  I flipped the bag closed and put it back where I’d found it. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t like the idea of how she’d react if I touched her knives. The fact that she had six didn’t mean she wasn’t attached to them individually. Six knives. Yeah, I would be leaving them alone.

  But my hand fell on my pocket and I felt Isaac’s pocketknife there. All this time and I hadn’t realized that I was holding a tool in my hand. A tool to make other tools.

  I set to work whittling the end of the stalk into a point. The stalk snapped twice before I was able to work it into something that could pass for a spear. Finally, I tested the point against the palm of my hand, hurt myself, and was satisfied. This should bring down small game.

  I hesitated as I stepped to the protective fence in front of the cave. Was I being foolish, imagining myself a hunter? But what choice did I have? If the girl hadn’t found me and shared her food, I’d have had to do this by myself. Enough moping in the safety of a dark cave. I stepped into the forest.

  It was at least a week since Solar Maximum, but the day was still bright and hot. As I pushed past the ferns, keeping the water on my left as a guide, I heard Rachel’s voice in my head. What are you doing, Simon? Hunting? With a sharpened stick?

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I started to mutter, then stopped. A rustling ahead of me sounded promising … it suggested something not too big.

  You’re going to hurt yourself, said Isaac.

  Rachel’s voice: You should be asking questions.

  “Why should I? The answers led me here!” My voice caught. “I hate this place.”

  Well, keep on asking questions, said Rachel. Maybe they’ll lead you out of here. We’re Grounders, Simon. We believe that if we stop asking questions, we die.

  “You died anyway,” I muttered. “And I wanted to die.”

  Wanted, said Rachel. What about now? You have to be curious. Wh
o is this girl? How could she be here? What language does she speak?

  “How do I even begin to answer that?” I snapped. “She’s not using words I understand!”

  Try, said Isaac. Just because you haven’t tried doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

  I stopped. “Wait a minute. Should I be hearing you in my head like this?”

  Good question, Michael joined in. And I’ll point out that one of the symptoms of heatstroke is hallucinations.

  His voice echoed. I snapped back to reality, though I wasn’t sure if I’d ever left it. The heat … The heat was oppressive.

  I looked at the water, set my spear aside, and knelt down to splash water over my head and neck. That helped clear my head.

  Around me, the forest animals chirped, grunted and cackled. I heard stamping in the distant foliage that I knew I needed to avoid. But then a bleat nearby made me stop. I listened, and the sound came again, to my right, and near the ground.

  There were ferns in the way, and twiggy branches. I didn’t see any thorns. I pushed the plants aside and crept through, as quietly as I could.

  That’s when I saw it — a little lizard, less than half a metre long. Kind of scrawny and slightly helpless looking. Rather like me. I raised my spear high.

  The creature looked up at me and bleated. I stopped my spear halfway through its arc.

  The creature was small. Just a baby, really. What in the Creator’s name was I doing killing a baby animal?

  But we needed food, and I wasn’t going to rely on some wild woman of the forest to take care of me. Never mind about my dignity; if I didn’t start pulling my weight, she might abandon me as the useless burden I was.

  I hefted my spear again. “Sorry, little friend,” I said. “It’s you or me.”

  The creature bleated once more. I hesitated again, and not in a tender-hearted way. It was a baby.

  Babies have …

  The giant lizard hit me from behind so hard, I sank into the ground where I landed. I struggled to get up, to turn around, but the creature bashed me into the ground again. Then it rolled me onto my back and sat on my legs. I stared into a snout full of many sharp teeth. Hot air beat against my face. Behind it, the little creature bleated incessantly.

  The giant lizard batted at me. Its strike caught me on the jaw. I saw stars, but amazingly I didn’t feel myself bleed, or any skin rip away. As the creature raised its forelegs, I saw its claws emerge. It snarled and drew back for a slashing blow. I struggled to free myself, then closed my eyes.

  Suddenly its weight was off me, and another voice snarled. I opened my eyes. The girl was standing above me. She’d picked up my spear and was fending off the giant lizard with fierce stabs and lunges. It backed up, but roared and lunged at her.

  The girl struck twice with the spear, but then the creature batted at it. The spear snapped and fell from the girl’s grip. She glanced at her bare hands, but quickly lunged forward, snarling, baring her teeth. She crouched, her shoulders and back arching. She stamped her hands on the ground.

  Though the creature was twice her size, spitting, and making short lunges at her, she stayed where she was, hissing, snapping and then roaring when it got too close. Finally, it turned away, gently picked up its baby in its teeth, and crashed into the forest.

  The girl snatched up the pointed half of my spear and pulled me upright. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks pale, and she took several glances behind her while she shoved me forward. We didn’t stop running until we reached our cave. That’s when she knocked me into the wall and chittered at me in that language of hers. I suspected she was saying, “What in sunlight were you thinking?”

  For a moment, I couldn’t figure out how to answer her, but her eyes drilled into me. So, I took my broken spear from her hand and mimed stabbing with it.

  The girl turned away with a snort and crackled something else. The campfire had burned down to embers again. The girl shook her head and set to building it up. I tossed the spear to the ground and sat in my makeshift bed, feeling like a scolded child.

  The girl got the fire going, then sat a long moment, staring into the flames. Her gaze fell on the remains of my spear. She uncurled herself and picked it up, testing it against the palm of her hand. Her eyebrows flicked up at its sharpness, then she angrily grabbed up the bag of bone knives she’d left behind. Her anger ebbed as she fingered their blades. She must have realized that they were still sharp and that I had not touched them.

  I could see the wheels turning. She looked at the point of the spear, and then at me. She said something, and I realized to my surprise that she was asking me a question.

  “You want to know how I made that?” I ventured.

  She clicked at me, mimed striking with the spear, then pointed at the tip.

  Yes, she did, I thought.

  I fished out the pocketknife, flipped open the blade, and held it out to her.

  She took it, fingered the blade, then jerked her hand away, sucking back a gasp. She turned the blade over in her hands, looking at the way the firelight reflected off the shiny surface.

  Had she never seen metal before? But, of course she had. She had that canister of firestarters. But her own knives were handmade from bone. She’d never worked metal; didn’t come from a place that knew how. So, where had she got that canister? Could she have stolen it from one of the other cities? How could she have sneaked in?

  She picked up the remains of the spear, brought the blade down, and drew it over the shaft, raising a strip of wood. She held up the knife again, open-mouthed. I could tell she was impressed. I couldn’t help but smile at that.

  She pushed the back of the blade, was surprised to see it move, then pushed some more. Her eyes widened as the blade swung back into its slot. She turned the red lozenge in her hands a long moment, then held it out to me. She clicked something.

  “You can have it, if you want,” I said. And took a breath of surprise. I’d cried, seeing it. It was my link to Isaac, to Rachel, and now I wanted to give it away?

  The girl frowned as I didn’t take the knife. She held it out again, but I gently pushed it back.

  “No, seriously,” I said. “I owe it to you, because you’re the only thing keeping me alive out here. I owe you a lot more, but except for the clothes on my back, this is all I have. It’s the only link I have to my home and my old life. It’s precious. Take it.”

  She looked thoughtful. Then she stood up and held out my pocketknife. I didn’t think I’d be able to push the knife back again. I took it.

  Then she handed me the pointy half of the spear. She pointed to it, and then to herself.

  “You want me to make you a spear?”

  She stepped out of the cave, returning a few minutes later with two long, hollow stems. She held these out. I took them, juggling them with my knife.

  “You definitely want me to make you a spear,” I said. “All right.” Maybe I wasn’t as useless as I’d thought.

  I set one of the stems aside, took the other one, opened the blade of my knife and started whittling.

  She settled down across the fire from me, and clicked something. And, this time, I listened — really listened — to the click. There were differences here; each series of clicks was a word. « Click, TAK! Tiktik! »

  It was a safe bet that she was thanking me. I wondered what the clicks were for “You’re welcome.”

  Try, came the distant echo of Isaac’s voice.

  I couldn’t imagine how to say “You’re welcome,” so I repeated what she said to me. I opened my mouth partway, as I’d seen her do it. I tested a few clicks with my tongue, then went for it. « Click, TAK! Tiktik! » Maybe repeating “thank you” might convey what I meant.

  The girl blinked at me. She opened her mouth. I watched her tongue move. « Click, TAK! Tiktik! … Clock, took? »

  Thank you … for the knife? Or for the spear? I tried again. « Click, TAK! Tiktik! » Then I held up the pocketknife. “Knife.” I said, enunciating, letting her see my mouth move.
“Kniiiiife.”

  The girl looked from the knife to me, and back again. She pointed at the knife.

  Clock, took? I worked my tongue. « Clock, took. » Then, “Knife.”

  The girl opened her mouth. I could see her moving her tongue, uncertainly. Her first sound came out as “ugh!” Then “nuh.” I smiled and she tried again. “Nniiiiiffe. Nife.”

  I nodded. « Clock, took. » “Knife.”

  The girl smiled. So did I.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE NAMES OF THINGS

  EK-TAAK-TOCK-TAAK:

  With patience and hard work, we began to talk to each other.

  The boy’s screeching, ear-grating speech offered more sounds to name things than my own collection of clicks, ticks and snaps. In fact, the boy’s words seemed to fit my mouth in a way I had never expected. Once I learned some of his words, it was easier to teach him mine. We did make mistakes. Like the time I tried to teach him to count, and he thought I was naming different stones.

  But we kept teaching. We kept learning. We named things as soon as we got up from our sleeps and while we ate our meals. We named the meats and the bones I used to cut them. We named the spear the boy whittled with his impossibly small metal knife. We named the walls, and when we sat by the fire, we named the flames.

  Then the boy put his hand to his chest and said, “Simon.”

  I sat up straight. He had named himself. But then I thought, everything we have picked up here has two names: his and mine. Except for us.

  The boy patted his chest. “Simon.”

  I frowned. How could he hiss like that? There was a wetness to it; not just a breath of air. Not quite a whistle. I tested my own tongue, and blew. “Hhhhhhh …” I tightened my tongue against the roof of my mouth, and ended up spraying him with spit, but then I suddenly had it. “Sssssssss.” I pulled back. I sounded like a snake! “Sssssssssiiiiiimon. Sssimon. Simon.”

  “Simon!” he said, grinning. “Yes. Simon!” He looked as happy as if he’d just killed a huge slink.